


Destiny

by Imagine036



Category: The Shannara Chronicles (TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Season 2, internal reflection, two years in the future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-02
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-25 20:17:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13842222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imagine036/pseuds/Imagine036
Summary: Despite it all, or maybe in spite of it, she’s still here, his constant in this life filled with the ephemeral.





	Destiny

**Author's Note:**

> After binge-watching this show and finding out it has been cancelled, I have been inspired to write my first complete piece in just about two years. It feels... really good to shake off the cobwebs. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy!!

He’s pretty sure he’s doomed.

 

Doomed to fight war after endless war; doomed to always carry the weight of the four lands on his shoulders; doomed to keep losing those he loves.

 

He shouldn’t have been surprised when Mareth took The Sleep. After all, she abdicated the throne that was rightfully hers to dedicate herself to the life of a Druid. The Sleep is part of that.

 

Still, the announcement of her intention shocked him. She started timidly enough, rightly assuming he would be upset with her decision. The worst part is that he doesn’t get to be mad at her, just like he wasn’t allowed to be angry with Amberle. They both made sacrifices for The Greater Good.

 

If only that thought provided any comfort at all.

 

“Keep up, Short Tips!”

 

He jolts from his pity party to see her already at the top of the rockface they’re meant to be climbing. She stands with one hand on her hip, eyes taunting and teasing down at him. These glimpses of the Rover he used to know are few and far between, and he can’t help quirking his lips in return.

 

“I was making sure you didn’t fall,” he calls up to her as he searches for his first hand-hold. It’s a habit of theirs, pretending everything is fine when it’s not. If they don’t talk about it, maybe none of it will be real.

 

He hears rather than sees her disbelieving scoff. “Right. What were you planning to do, catch me?”

 

“Someone’s got to,” he replies easily, hoisting himself up.

 

He doesn’t think anything of the silence for a moment, then realizes his mistake. News of Lyria’s engagement flew across the four lands some months ago. She claims she isn’t surprised. After all, she’d left Leah nearly two years ago to train with Cogline. She didn’t expect Lyria to wait for her.

 

At least that’s what she tells him.

 

But he knows her, probably better than anyone else at this point (even Lyria). He can see it weighing on her, can feel it hanging heavily in the air between them with every step. She’s realizing her destiny just as he is: to be alone.

 

He finishes the ascent and is hauling himself over the edge when the rock gives way beneath his boot. It happens too quickly for him to do more than scrabble for purchase on the flat surface before he’s falling backward. Wil Ohmsford, the Last Son of Shannara, Defeater of the Warlock Lord and Survivor of The Forbidding, falls to his death during a rock-climbing exhibition. How heroic.

 

Just as the initial panic gives way to acceptance that, yes, he is truly going to die a most mundane death, his shoulder screams in protest and his arm pulls nearly from its socket. He’s yanked back toward the rock and slams against it, the force knocking the remaining breath from his lungs. His eyes fly upward in surprise, though they really shouldn’t. Who else would be there to save him from himself?

 

“I guess I’m the one who’s catching _you_ ,” she quips, leaning back to help him pull himself up and over the edge.

 

He huffs a laugh as he clambers to his feet as gracefully as he can and dusts himself off. “Always there when I need you.”

 

She half-smiles, half-smirks at him as she turns to continue on their way. He starts to follow, but his words catch up to him all at once and he stops short.

_Always there when I need you_.

 

She is and has been for a long time now. His father, mother, Amberle, Uncle Flick, Allanon, Mareth… They’ve all left him in some manner. He’s lost more loved ones than any one person should have to. Casualties of his destiny, as Allanon would say. Always good with the pep talks.

 

Despite it all, or maybe in spite of it, she’s still here, his constant in this life filled with the ephemeral. Even as she’s taken her own share of blows, both physical and emotional, she’s remained fighting alongside him. Granted, she wasn’t always physically there, but they’ve been travelling together for the past six months and he’s only just now realizing this. Even before, when they were forced to part ways for, as Allanon would say, The Greater Good, they always managed to come back together. He has no doubt that, if they were forced to separate tomorrow, they would find their way back to each other, almost as though it’s destiny.

 

“Come on, Short Tips!” She calls back once more. “We’re losing daylight!”

 

She’s right, he realizes. The sun is dipping below the horizon, painting the sky a myriad of pinks and oranges. It’s breathtaking, but not nearly as breathtaking as the image of her standing before it, powerful and poised, ready for anything and everything to come their way.

 

And he knows, in that moment, that he was wrong. They aren’t destined to be alone.

 

They’re destined to be together.


End file.
